Aaron may talk to Bonds about homer record

AP , ATLANTA, GEORGIA

The San Francisco Giants' Barry Bonds, left, is congratulated by former home run king Hank Aaron during a pre-game ceremony at Pacific Bell Park in San Francisco in 2002. Aaron said on Thursday that he would be willing to talk to Bonds about breaking the home run record.

PHOTO: AFP

Hank Aaron might talk to Barry Bonds about the new home run record.

"Eventually, if I happen to see him somewhere, I'd probably say something to him," Aaron said on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Web site on Thursday.

"To be honest, I'm as happy for him as anybody," Aaron said.

Aaron was asleep at his home in Atlanta when Bonds hit his 756th home run on Tuesday night to break Aaron's mark.

"It was 1 o'clock in the morning," Aaron told the newspaper. "Heck, I'm not going to sit up and watch a baseball game. It's just like I wasn't going to be able to travel all over the world to watch. It wasn't being disrespectful or anything."

Aaron previously recorded a video congratulating Bonds and it was played on the scoreboard at AT&T Park in San Francisco.

"I've gotten a lot of calls saying that was the right thing to do, and these were from people who know a little bit more about this situation than just the average person," Aaron said.

"It really got to the point where a lot of people started wanting to give you advice about what you should do, and they didn't know what the hell the situation was," Aaron said.

"I mean, these were people that you had been knowing for a long time, but they couldn't figure out why I wasn't getting involved in this thing," he said. "Then they would come forward and say things like, `Well, you need to do this. You need to do that.' They wanted to give you all of this advice, and they didn't know what was all involved in it, really.

"Friends that you've had a long time are all of a sudden coming forth and telling you things like, `Well, I don't understand why you aren't making comments, or why aren't you doing blah, blah, blah?' Well, you know what? You're not supposed to understand any of it, because you're not in it."

The 73-year-old Hall of Famer avoided ballparks during Bonds' run to the record.

"Oh, I feel tremendously relieved. I'm so glad this is done with, and now I can just go my own way," Aaron said.

This story has been viewed 1745 times.

Comments will be moderated. Remarks containing abusive and obscene language, personal attacks of any kind or promotion will be removed and the user banned.